The present invention relates generally to radar and electronic warfare systems, and more particularly, to radar and electronic warfare systems employing continuous transverse stub antenna arrays.
Currently fielded radar warning receivers (RWR) resolve emitter's angular location and motion at a very coarse quadrant level through passive reception of the emitter's signal. In particular, the angular resolution of a RF emitter is typically 22 degrees. Multiple emitters in the same quadrant could pose identification ambiguities for a radar warning receiver. In addition, accurate passive ranging information is not achievable with current radar warning receiver antennas. Detection of RF emitters with cross polarization relative to the radar warning receiver antenna is also not feasible.
In addition, deceptive electronic countermeasures (active transmission) must have the capability to jam multiple targets very rapidly. This requires the jammers to have a wide bandwidth and rapid response time. Currently, jammers are limited in bandwidth coverage and can only sequentially jam a limited number of RF emitters.
Planar array antennas are the closest prior art to non-scanning continuous transverse stub antennas. Continuous transverse stub antennas employed in the present invention has a cost and weight advantage over conventional planar array antennas. Conventional passive-electronically scanned antennas are the prior art for voltage variable dielectric continuous transverse stub electronically scanned antennas. The conventional antennas cost more, are heavier and have a larger depth dimension than continuous transverse stub electronically scanned antennas employed in the present invention. Also one-dimensional continuous transverse stub electronically scanned antennas are practical at much higher RF frequencies than conventional electronically scanned antennas. Continuous transverse stub electronically scanned antennas and continuous transverse stub active arrays are also more serviceable than conventional antennas because of their simple architecture.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide for radar and electronic warfare systems that incorporate continuous transverse stub antenna arrays, and provide for improved performance over their conventional counterparts.